Hate to just pick on Christianity or Islam or Hinduism because they get all the spotlight for fundamentalist dimwittery, so this morning rather than continue to pick on those who are picked on way too much, it's time to include our best religious attempt at achieving perfection here on earth.

Everyone loves Tibet Right? We all have a picture of how idyllic- no utopic the allusions to perfection that are provoked by its mere imagining.

But reality is sometimes harsher than stories and so it seems to be with the reality of Tibet. Michael Parenti has a long article that goes through the real history from the installation of the first lama in the 13th century to their driving him out in 1951 and beyond. Written in 2002, it is sure to inform and perhaps shock or anger you at how poorly the people of Tibet were treated- but not by the Chinese.

Parenti compares the lives of the the people as that of the dark ages in Europe so there was very little love lost by the poor when the Chinese came.

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

Does this sound familiar?

Quote:

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

Some statements to show how the truth has been twisted-

Quote:

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.”36 The official 1953 census--six years before the Chinese crackdown--recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.37 Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves--of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”38

In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit some Tibetans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal.39 By the 1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exile communities abroad, “restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there.”40

So it's actually not the buddhism, but rather the sect of autocrats that humiliated their people keeping them as slaves. Hopefully their new buddhism will be better than what they endured for centuries.

Very interesting info, DO.g's...my poor knowledge of Tibet has come more or less from stories about Mt. Everest, with the mountain being the main focus. Like most people, I have always blamed the Chinese for Tibet's problems, especially economically. I know that sherpa guides are so eager to risk their lives helping teams of climbing Europeans and Americans make it to the summit of Mt. Everest. The monies these guides get for doing so doesn't seem to be worth it, considering their risks, but to them, it's a fortune.

Quote:

"For a foreigner, a Sherpa means someone who carries loads at high altitudes. But Sherpas are actually all Tibetans. They are called 'People from the East.'"—Jamling Norgay

This shows the main problem with any organized religion, the organizers. The lure of ultimate power is nearly always too great for mere mortals to resist. And, those who give themselves over heart and soul to the organization are so easy to manipulate.